“I used to play basketball just because of him,” Kris said of his older brother. “My brother was like Michael Jordan to me. Anything he did, I would do, too.”

While hockey dominated the sports landscape in Montreal, the Joseph brothers took to basketball. They rolled up socks and used a clothes basket for a goal. The playground at Bedford Elementary School didn’t have a basketball goal, so Maurice and Kris got creative.

“We’d play with a steel garbage can,” Maurice said. “It was 4 feet tall and we’d put it up against the wall.”

Added Kris: “We used to take all the trash out of the garbage cans because we didn’t want any garbage juice on our basketball.”

Starving for basketball in hockey-mad Canada, the brothers watched Michael Jordan’s “Come Fly With Me” video over and over. And in the summer, when Maurice would report to a 7 a.m. workout with Wong, he brought along his little brother.

“It would be seven in the morning and he’s talking about going to work out,” Kris said. “I wanted to sleep till noon because it was summertime.”

Wong remembered a 14-year-old Kris being far different from his brother.

“He wasn’t that tall and he was overweight,” Wong said. “I think he was 5-7 or 5-8 and 160 pounds. He was a little pudgy.”

Maurice received a scholarship from Michigan State. Back home in Montreal, a funny thing was happening to Kris.

“I started growing,” he said. “I didn’t even notice it myself. Other people would tell me, ‘You’ve gotten taller.’”

The once-chubby point guard, who had been cut from his youth team, blossomed into a 6-foot-7 forward.

Kris Joseph: Meet the OrangeSenior forward Kris Joseph led the team with 14.3 points per game while starting 34 games last season for the Syracuse University basketball team. He'll be the starter again this season at small forward and he's been selected as a preseason All-American in the Blue Ribbon Basketball Yearbook

Joseph, now a senior on the Syracuse University basketball team, leads the No. 2-ranked Orange in scoring. He’s scored 1,406 points in his career, putting him 27th on the school’s all-time list.

On Saturday, Joseph will play his final home game at the Carrier Dome as Syracuse takes on Louisville in the regular-season finale for both teams.

“He told me he didn’t want to think about it almost being over,” Maurice Joseph said. “He’s still got so much to accomplish.”

Maurice had multiple scholarship offers before choosing Michigan State, but Wong knew it was a rarity for a kid from Montreal to get noticed by big-time colleges in the United States. As Kris grew taller than his older brother and showed much more promise, Wong realized that he needed to leave Montreal.

“Kris was less focused than Mo,” Wong said. “The thing with Kris, we felt that athletically and academically he needed to go to a school that would provide him with academic support, and in basketball he needed to be challenged to reach his talent level.”

After Joseph’s freshman year at Mount Royal High School, Wong talked with him and his mother, Eartha Rigsby, about transferring to a school in the United States. Wong knew George Leftwich, the athletic director at Archbishop Carroll High School in Washington, D.C.

Leftwich approved the transfer, but Rigsby nixed the deal.

“My mom was OK with it at first,” Joseph said. “We had the opportunity, but my mom changed her mind. She didn’t want me to leave. I was the baby of the family and she didn’t think I was ready.”

A year later, Rigsby let the youngest of her four children leave for Washington. Joseph would spend the next two years at Archbishop Carroll, and he noticed a big difference right away.

“When I first got to D.C., we had a couple open runs,” Joseph said. “I guess there was a little buzz about a 6-7 Canadian import. Gonzaga was there. Pittsburgh came. A few other schools were there. I was like, ‘Wow, all these guys are coming to see me?’

“In Montreal, I don’t think any schools even knew I existed.”

Though he was new to the recruiting scene, Joseph already knew about one school — Syracuse. He had become enamored with the Orange while watching Carmelo Anthony videos on YouTube.

“I used to watch videos of Carmelo Anthony when he was at Oak Hill,” Joseph said. “When he got to Syracuse, Syracuse became my favorite school. I used to YouTube a lot of his clips. Because of him I became a Syracuse fan.”

Syracuse assistant coach Rob Murphy heard about Joseph. Murphy, now the head coach at Eastern Michigan, knew Maurice Joseph was at Michigan State and he worried that Kris might follow his brother to East Lansing.

Kris would visit Maurice at college and play in pickup games with him and other Michigan State players.

Then, Maurice transferred to Vermont after the 2006-07 season.

Maurice Ager had become Kris Joseph’s favorite player at Michigan State, and Murphy had coached Ager in high school.

“I looked up to Maurice Ager,” Kris said. “When I asked him a few questions about Murph, he said Murph is cool. I trusted Murph. Although Syracuse was my dream school, Murph was huge in my decision to come to Syracuse.”

Joseph became a standout player at Archbishop Carroll. As a senior, he averaged 18 points, 11 rebounds and five assists.

He came to Syracuse with high expectations, but he struggled with stronger and more experienced competition. He had to battle veteran players like Paul Harris and Kristof Ongenaet for playing time.

“It was a huge adjustment,” Joseph said. “Even Colgate and teams like that were tough for me to compete against. I wasn’t as strong as the older college players. I might have more talent, but experience-wise, they killed me.”

Still, Joseph played in each of SU’s first 24 games in his freshman year. He saw double-figure minutes in 19 of those games. But he missed an easy shot in a game against West Virginia and his season crumbled.

Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim sent Ongenaet in for Joseph. Ongenaet responded with six points, seven rebounds and three blocks. From that point on, Joseph’s role diminished. He didn’t play a single minute in four of SU’s last 14 games.

He played more than 10 minutes in just one game the rest of the year — the Orange’s six-overtime victory against Connecticut in the Big East Tournament.

“You can’t be mad at Coach,” Murphy recalled telling Joseph. “Kristof took advantage of his opportunity. He had more experience. He was an energy player, and that’s what Coach wanted.”

Joseph recalled sitting in the same seat for an entire game.

“No one really wants to sit ever,” he said, “but you have to look inside yourself and honestly say, ‘Am I better than Paul Harris right now? No. Am I as strong as Kristof? I didn’t think so.’”

Murphy challenged Joseph. So did Boeheim. Lose 20 pounds, they said. Boeheim and Murphy said Joseph needed to be in better shape to run the floor like a Syracuse small forward.

“Lose weight?” Joseph thought to himself. “I didn’t think I was that big to begin with.”

The summer between his freshman and sophomore years, Joseph changed his diet. He drank water, carrying a big bottle around campus. He did extra cardio workouts every day. He did pool workouts with Lazarus Sims, SU’s director of player development.

When he reported for team measurements in the fall of 2009, Joseph stunned himself. His vertical leap had improved by four inches.

As a sophomore, Joseph was named the Big East’s Sixth Man of the Year. He played a critical role on a Syracuse team that went 30-5 and rose to No. 1 in the rankings. As a junior, he averaged 14.3 points and was named third-team All-Big East.

This year, Joseph leads the Orange’s balanced offense with 14.2 points per game. He’s a likely first-team All-Big East selection.

In a pay-it-forward scenario, he’s become a mentor to Syracuse’s younger players, especially Rakeem Christmas, who has been experiencing a freshman season very similar to Joseph’s.

“Rakeem was a Murph recruit, and he’s really like my little brother,” Joseph said. “We talk a lot off the court. It’s all about being patient.”

Joseph will be surrounded by family on his Senior Day. His mother and father will be at the Carrier Dome, as will his two sisters, two nieces, two nephews and an aunt.

His older brother, however, won’t be able to make the game. Maurice is the director of basketball operations at George Washington, which has a game at Dayton on Saturday. But Maurice knows his younger brother better than anyone, and he knows what the day will mean to him.

“The biggest thing I’d want people to know about Kris is how much he cares about the people around him at Syracuse — the coaches, the fans, the community,” Maurice said. “In his four years, he’s gained a sense of loyalty and pride for Syracuse and the community up there. He talks about Syracuse basketball a lot. He’s proud to be on this team. He’s very much invested in the Syracuse University culture. I’d like people to know that.”